How do you feel about people, who either ask you questions about your service or look around your products, then leave without buying?

Some business owners get angry. They perceive these people to be time wasters. In doing so, they miss out on a massively valuable opportunity. They leave a huge business asset on the table, untapped.

I’m referring to the feedback, which so-called time wasters can provide you with. Feedback, which can help you dramatically improve your marketing and sales results.

Allow me to explain.

You attract time wasters for a reason

If you’re attracting lots of the wrong type of enquiries, there’s a reason. It’s usually a sign that:

Your marketing message needs to be improved.

You are marketing to the wrong people.

Or both.

It’s extremely easy to learn which applies to your marketing, so long as you ask for feedback. Armed with this valuable information, you can then adapt and improve your marketing so you attract the right kind of enquiries.

Before they end the call or leave your premises, ask something like: What was it that prompted you to (visit or call) us today? This will give you some outstandingly valuable feedback to work with.

For example

If people often say they were looking for a low-priced whatever, (yet your prices are average or above average), you need to review your marketing message. Take a look and see if you are overstating how low your prices are.

If you are not overstating how low your prices are, then you could well be targeting your marketing message at people with too small a budget.

You get the idea.

The key is to get as much feedback as you can from those who fail to hire you or buy from you. It will help you improve your marketing message, improve your targeting and generate more business!

So, reframe how you think about time wasters. Speak with them. Listen. Learn from their feedback. Then, make the necessary improvements to your marketing. Don’t just assume that someone is a time waster and therefore of no value to your business. Their feedback could be commercial gold dust.

In today’s post, I share a strategy with you that can help you have more, winning ideas than ever before.

Think about it: Behind every successful business are a series of ideas. Winning ideas, which open up new opportunities or set the business on a new path. The challenge with winning ideas is that they often look like average ideas, until after they become hugely successful. As a result, most great ideas never see the light of they. In fact, I bet you have a few tucked away right now, without even knowing it.

Some experts thought laptops would never become popular

“[…] I.B.M. never legitimized the market with its much rumored ”Clamshell,” probably because the company realized that laptops are a small niche market, not a mass market.”

And when the electric light bulb was invented, most people said it would never become a mass market product. It was thought that there was no affordable way to get electricity to enough homes.

Ideas that win

Business owners sometimes ask me what I think of an idea they have. The challenge here, is that it doesn’t matter what I think or what their friends think. Winning ideas are not anointed. If you want to know how good your idea is, you need to get it out there. If you do, you will find it’s almost impossible to fail.

It’s a win-win thing.

If it flies, you’ll have a success on your hands.

If it flops, you’ll learn something, which you can invest in the next idea and greatly increase your chances of success.

Ironically, the only way to guarantee an idea will fail, is to try and protect it from failure by locking it away.

It’s a lose-lose thing.

The idea you fail to ship can’t succeed.

The idea you fail to ship can’t teach you anything new.

This not only insulates you from success, it insulates you from learning and growing.

When I started out in business, I found it very hard to put my ideas into action. I knew it made sense. I knew I needed to do it. But it’s one of those pieces of advice, which is ‘easier said than done’.

Thankfully, I discovered a way forward, which I’m going to share with you.

Here’s the strategy that worked for me

I’ve shared this strategy with countless people over the years and the results have been amazing. It’s actually really, really simple.

My breakthrough came, when I figured out that the part of my mind responsible for putting ideas into action, was weak. It needed improving, conditioning, strengthening. I thought one way to do this, would be to treat it like a weak muscle. To make a weak muscle strong, you start off by working with very light weights. As the muscle grows, you slowly increase the weight you’re working with. Eventually, the muscle becomes strong.

I started, by acting on what I considered to be small ideas. Ideas that were unlikely to set the world on fire if they worked, but where there was relatively little downside if they failed.

Every time I acted on one of these small business ideas, I’d write it down in a journal, along with the results. With every new journal entry, my ‘idea muscles’ grew a little. I also noticed that even with these small ideas, my business was starting to see some very encouraging results. This further built my idea muscles. Pretty soon I was working with excitement on big ideas. Today, I actively look for them. I seek them out. And if they’re interesting, I put them into play.

As the frequency and size of the ideas you act on increases, so does the development of your business. And something else happens. Business in general becomes a lot more interesting. That’s because working on new ideas, even small ones, is extremely invigorating. It causes you to think differently, meet new people and explore new opportunities. Just remember to start with small ideas. Slowly build it up. And be sure to chronicle your results, so you can see the progress you’re making.

I hope you found this useful. If you did, please share it using one of the options below.

If not, I suggest you give it a try. Lists are perfect for sharing, which makes them ideal if you want to expand your reach on social networks. New readers who discover your work through list content, will then get the chance to see your more detailed work. Others will follow you on the networks, where they see your lists shared. Almost all of my most shared blog posts are lists. This list-based page has been shared over 50 thousand times.

Lists can also be very powerful, when it comes to increasing your email marketing open rates. Email marketing that has a list in the subject line, can result in massively increased open rates.

Here’s why.

Most small business owners are not expert copywriters. As such, the subject lines they use for their email marketing tend to under-perform. And poorly written subject lines result in low open rates. This means no matter how good their marketing message is, very few people will see it.

Using an average list title as the subject line of a marketing email, will always out-perform an average, regular subject line.

So, Should I focus exclusively on lists, Jim?

No. No you shouldn’t. Seriously. Don’t!

Allow me to explain.

True, there are YouTubers making a fortune from creating only list-based videos. And yes, there are sites that attract millions of readers, who rely very heavily on list-based content. However, relying exclusively on lists is a bad fit for most small business owners. They should be used sparingly.

For example, I could have written this post as a list.

It would have taken me half as long to write.

It would have been shared a lot more on social networks.

And the email version of the post would have been opened by a lot more people.

However, I wanted to dig a little deeper into one thing… the marketing effectiveness of lists. I didn’t want to weaken that focus with “15 Reasons why lists dominate the internet”.

Here’s the thing: Sometimes, you need to offer more substance around one subject. Other times, an issue could be impacting your readers and you need to address it. And there are times when you want to share one really useful idea, which wouldn’t work if you broke it down into a list of sub-ideas. In other words, that same surface-level approach that makes lists so popular, renders them useless for anything that requires depth.

So mix it up.

Test and measure

If you haven’t already used list-based blog posts, articles, videos, podcasts or newsletters, give it a go. Experiment. Test different types of list. Measure the feedback. Check things (metrics) including; sales, leads, open rates, social shares and new subscribers.

In short, if you’re not embracing list-based content, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

Wherever you are right now, whatever your past, you can be a successful entrepreneur or serial entrepreneur.

Let’s first get the ‘serial entrepreneur’ myth out of the way

Look around any business network and it won’t be long before you find people, calling themselves serial entrepreneurs.

They’re everywhere. Or so it appears. However, as is often the case, all is not what it seems. In fact, 99.9% of the people I see calling themselves serial entrepreneurs… are not.

They aren’t even entrepreneurs.

They are serial starters!

Allow me to explain.

Serial entrepreneurs or serial starters?

Serial entrepreneurs: These rare people build a series of successful businesses and fully realise the potential of each business, before they move on. A well known example is serial entrepreneur Ev Williams. Ev founded Blogger and sold it to Google for millions, then co-founded Twitter and is now developing the hugely successful Medium.

Serial starters: These are the people we see everywhere, who start a series of enterprises, yet never successfully finish developing any of them. They lack the commitment shown by entrepreneurs. So when the going gets tough, they get demotivated and quit. The vast majority of self-proclaimed serial entrepreneurs fit in this enormous group.

This begs the question.

Why are serial starters so common?

It’s extremely easy to start a new venture. It’s exciting. It brings motivation with it. It gets them up early in the mornings and keeps them up late at night. Everything is new. A blank slate. A new beginning. Endless possibilities.

Then, after a while, the real work begins. Not the new enterprise, shiny work. The real nitty-gritty work:

The sales calls.

The rejections.

The unreturned mail.

The broken promises from those who said they would help.

The cash flow problems.

The hard knocks.

As the shine wears off, the momentum drops for the serial starters. So, they look for the next big thing, rather than finishing what they started. The cycle repeats unless they summon the grit to make it to the finish line.

More about grit than money

You don’t need to start of rich, to be an entrepreneur or serial entrepreneur. You do need grit though.

Yes, someentrepreneurs, such as Gary Vaynerchuk, inherit a multi-million dollar business from their parents, and can use that wealth to get all the additional investment they need and branch into other enterprises. However, most of us start off with little more than an idea, grit and commitment.

Ev Williams, who I mentioned earlier, is a textbook example of starting without money. Like most entrepreneurs, he had to do it the hard way. No wealthy parents. No million dollar assets. No easy way to access the financial investment he needed.

Ev was so broke when he started Blogger that he was living on a friend’s couch. He’s now worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

History shows us that when it comes to business, money is less important than grit. Remember, Steve Jobs came from a blue collar family! The key is to decide what you want and then commit to doing what’s required, to make it happen. It’s that simple. And that hard.

Tip: If you found this useful, you can get my latest ideas delivered direct to your inbox, for free, right here.

Joe emailed me with a very direct question. As lots of you may have a similar challenge, I’ve shared the question below, along with my answer.

Hi Jim. What’s the best way for me to crush my competitors? I’m going to lose my business soon unless I turn things around and I’m sick of missing out to competitors that are no better than me.

I think crush is a strong word, but it certainly gets Joe’s frustration across.

How to beat the competition

There are a couple of proven options. I’m going to highlight them, then offer a more powerful alternative.

1. Most business leaders will tell you that the best way to beat the competition, is to outsmart them. This means spotting or creating opportunities before they do. This is a very effective approach.

2. Some enlightened business leaders will tell you that the best way to beat the competition, is to out care them. This means focusing heavily on customer care. It means truly going the extra mile. It means showing the marketplace that you care enormously about what matters to them. This is also very effective.

However, I’ve uncovered a 3rd and massively more powerful alternative. You can out manoeuvre your competitors by doing both of the above!

By outsmarting them and out caring them, you leverage 2 enormously powerful strategies. You set yourself apart from all the rest. This makes you a lot more visible. Moreover, it makes you more visible to the right people; those who value what you do. And as my clients can confirm, it’s a spectacularly effective way to build a high-profit business.

Is the out manoeuvre approach easy? No. It takes a little additional effort.

Is it possible? Yes. Of course it is. I do it every day.

Is it worth it? Absolutely. You see, this approach not only helps you attract great clients or customers. It helps you retain them. And a business that’s regularly winning great new clients, and seldom losing any, is pretty-much unbeatable.

Did you know that yourmarketing can fail, even before people read what you have to say?

Well, it’s true. And it happens all the time. Here’s an example of what I mean.

Spammers pointing lasers into my eyes!

I was prompted to share this with you, after I received a spam email. It was from a company that wants to sell me laser eye surgery. They even offered me a discount.

Let’s unpack that for a moment:

They assumed I’d be happy to place my eyesight in the hands of spammers. They thought I’d be perfectly okay, about some spammer pointing lasers into my eyes.

And they were wrong.

What your content marketing says about you

Here’s the thing:

That laser surgery company may use only the most highly trained laser surgeons.

They might have the best possible equipment.

They could have outsourced their marketing to an agency and been unaware their message was being used to spam people.

And they may well be like many small business owners, and think that it’s only spam when someone elseis doing it.

Of course, none of that matters. Because when we’re spammed by a company, all we know for 100% certain, is that they’re spamming us. And spammers are considered to be annoying, desperate and unprofessional.

That’s a bad look for any business.

Be careful how you deliver your marketing

The way you market your business is part of your story. It shows your marketplace how professional you are. It shows them what you believe to be acceptable. It shows them what your business standards are. And it shows them where they should position you, among your competitors. All of that takes place before they even see (watch or hear) the content of your marketing message.